


The World's On Fire

by heart_full_of_magic



Category: Fate: The Winx Saga - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Fear, Fire, Gen, Hurt, Light Angst, Lightning - Freeform, Sadness, Spoilers, THIS IS SO NEW TO ME, description of fire, doubting, mention of vomit, so many spoilers, they set a whole village on fire oh my god, this show just came out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28929942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heart_full_of_magic/pseuds/heart_full_of_magic
Summary: *SPOILERS FOR Fate: The Winx Saga. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!*"She'd told us she'd taken pains to evacuate the village. She told us that only the Burned Ones would be killed in the blast."A look at the day Farah Dowling has never forgotten.
Relationships: Farah Dowling & Saul Silva & Ben "Harvey" Harvinder, JUST FRIENDSHIP THANK YOU
Comments: 19
Kudos: 84





	The World's On Fire

**Author's Note:**

> hello! it's been a while since i've published.
> 
> *THIS WORK CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR Fate: A Winx Saga. IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED ALL EPISODES, PLEASE DO BEFORE READING THIS FIC*
> 
> I finished this 6 episode show a few hours ago? And it's so freaking good I immediately went for fanfics but of course there weren't any since it just came out :') so I thought, why not start?
> 
> As a result, this is really rough. I'm trying to get better at introspection and writing characters well, and Farah was my absolute favorite, so I hope I've done her some justice. This work isn't perfect, a few details are likely iffy because (again) this show just came out and I wanted to put stuff down. 
> 
> hope you enjoy !

They stood at the top of the mountain, the village splayed in front of them. She could feel her braid blowing in the breeze, and the powerful presence of the woman to her right. Ben, to the woman’s right, had barely said a word the entire trip. She could feel his unease from where she stood. There was a tentativeness building up in her as well, a certain fear that made her doubtful of her own abilities.

Farah looked at her first, knowing the uncertainty was plain on her face. But Rosalind stood strong. She faced the village with no hesitation, without saying a word. Farah shifted where she stood, wanting to say something, wanting to stop-

Rosalind’s eyes glowed grey. Farah knew her cue.

Ever since they were children, they had been taught it was impossible for fairies to pool their magic together. A fairy’s magical signature was unique, special to them, and couldn’t be copied or paired with anyone else’s. For a moment, she wondered if Rosalind had told someone that they were wrong.

Their magic blurred together into one. Farah felt like she was coming home, embraced in the cold arms of the woman standing next to her. Her clouds melded with Rosalind’s lightning, and dimly she felt Ben’s thunder join them. Rosalind’s arms were raised first, and the lightning struck for the first time.

Farah blinked, and missed the moment the lightning hit the village.

Blurs of red, yellow, orange, and wood quickly turning to black. The smoke and flames rose in clouds of color, and even at a distance Farah felt like she was choking. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. Rosalind lowered her arms and exhaled sharply, the ghost of a smile on her face. They had done it. The Burned Ones were no more, there was no more war. For a moment, she let herself get lost in the flames and imagine the monsters being burned to their deaths. Fitting.

Then Saul was running towards them.

Saul was running, and he was alone, and he was sweaty and dirty and his sword was… bloody? The three on the mountaintop turned to face their comrade, who was marching right up to Rosalind and yelling.

Her ears were underwater. She couldn’t breathe. What was Saul yelling? Why was his sword bloody? And where was Andreas? Where was Andreas?

“HOW COULD YOU?! WE TRUSTED YOU, WE FOLLOWED YOU-”

She didn’t hear the rest. Rosalind had held up a hand, and Saul had suddenly fallen silent. Farah shrank back instinctively, knowing better than to try and stop her. A boom from behind her made her jump, turning back to the village just in time to watch more of it explode in a shattering of debris. Her ears were ringing, and she thought she could hear cries in the air. Blinking, pushing those thoughts from her mind, she turned back to Rosalind and Ben, the former having grabbed their frantic friend by the arms.

“Saul, you need to calm yourself.” Rosalind’s voice was sharp, and Farah herself had learned (from much experience) not to talk back to her when she employed that tone. Which is why she was near shocked when Saul just shook the woman off, pointing a finger to the raging flames that they had just set a moment ago.

“There were PEOPLE in that village! HUMANS! And we’ve just slaughtered them all!” Saul screamed, desperation etched in every line on his face. 

As another explosion rang out behind her, Farah’s world fell out from under her feet.

She staggered for a moment, heard Ben let out a gasp of surprise as the cries she had heard before suddenly grew louder. The cries of people. There were humans in there, but Rosalind had told them that they had been evacuated. Rosalind had told them, she had promised, and… and she had lied. Farah and her mentor met eyes, the ice-cold feeling of realization washing over her. Rosalind would do anything to end this war. She would do anything to get rid of the Burned Ones.

Even if that meant sacrificing human lives.

There wasn’t a moment to spare. They had to make it to the village. Her voice shook. “Ben, Saul, w-we have to-to go. We can try and save them.”

The two men looked at her, hesitating only a second before beginning to run down the mountain. Farah followed them, not bothering to say a word to the woman she once considered her most trusted confidant. She refused to spare a moment on that now-- not when there were lives to save. There would be time for that conversation later.

Farah ran like she had never run before. Her lungs felt like they were on fire, but that was nothing compared to the village burning in front of her. As they got closer, she saw what she had missed from the top of the mountain. The village was almost entirely rubble and ash at this point, but there were doors wide open and windows smashed as if people had been trying to escape. There were mounds of charred clothes piled in some places, like they had been torn off and left to burn. And the smell.

She pretended she didn’t see Ben throw up as they stood in front of the burning homes.

Saul let out a cry of frustration. The three of them were on the outskirts of the village, but it would be impossible to enter it at this point. Every single home was on fire, if it hadn’t already been reduced to ashes. Heat blazed throughout the air, and Farah felt like she couldn’t breathe. She tried to take a few gulping breaths of air and choked when she inhaled smoke.

“W-What do we do?” Ben asked, coughing from both the smoke and the bile. 

“We have to go in there,” Farah replied, her eyes watering as she tried to peer into the smoldering buildings. “T-There might still be someone alive.”

Saul looked at her as if she had suddenly sprouted wings. “Are you insane? You’ll get killed. We were too late, I was…” He trailed off, as if the events of the past half hour had suddenly hit him.

Farah put a shaky hand on his shoulder. “This is not your fault.” She stated firmly, looking into his eyes. Saul looked back at her, clearly unbelieving, but willing to drop the subject for now. Farah turned back to the village. “I’m going in.”

“Farah, please, don’t do this-”

She heard Ben’s words turn to shotus as she raced into the flaming village, keeping herself small so as to not get caught by any wayward flames.

She was not a fire fairy, and the only experience she had with flames came from candles and fireplaces and the occasional fire fairy acquaintance or student. She had never been this close to the burning light, and decided that she never again wanted to be. The smoke and dryness filled her nose, her eyes, her skin, her lungs-- it was choking her, surrounding her, but she had to keep moving. Farah coughed and brought her jacket over her nose, trying to breathe as little as she could. She stumbled through the flames until she finally found a stone wall, no- a well. It was a well, and a wet one. It was hot, but not on fire. She leaned against it for a moment, catching her breath and staring at the burning world around her.

*There was a certain beauty in setting the world on fire and watching from the center of the flames.

Farah wondered, just for a moment, what it would be like to be set on fire. She’d caught glimpses of black mounds, and she wasn’t stupid enough to believe they were bodies of Burned Ones. Who was she kidding? There was no way anyone could have possibly survived the lightning strikes, nor the two explosions that followed.

She took a breath, steadied herself, and stood. She would make it out of here alive. She would get back to Saul and Ben… and they would deal with Rosalind. Pushing away the sharp pain in her chest, Farah started to make her way back to the outskirts of the village.

The fire was beginning to die, and Ben almost fell to his knees when Farah came out of it, dirty and sweaty but alive. They embraced, and Saul joined them for a moment before all three of them sat on the ground.

In silence, they watched the village smolder. No more cries were heard, no person came stumbling out of the flames. Not a single soul was there. They had… murdered. They had murdered every person in this village. Farah took a shuddering breath, squeezing her eyes shut. The cold beauty from inside the flames, the smell of rotting flesh, the sight of burning clothes. It kept replaying in her head, a constant loop of fear, ash, and pain that would never end. It was all their fault.

This was not a day they would forget.

The flames had dwindled, the sky had turned a darker grey, and soon only smoke remained. Farah, Saul, and Ben slowly began to stand, each helping the other up. They leaned on each other, unable to tear their eyes from the disaster they had caused. A result of their undying, unwavering trust in a mentor who had betrayed them.

Speaking of said mentor, Farah dimly registered that she hadn’t seen Rosalind since they ran from the mountain. Where could she have gone? On second thought, she didn’t care to know. Let Rosalind run away from her problems. They would need to find a way to deal with this… later.

“We need to return home.” Saul said quietly. Ben looked up at that, and Farah couldn’t help but wonder if he was thinking about his unborn child. Would his child ever know that their father was a murderer? Would anyone ever know?

“Where’s Andreas?” Ben croaked, his voice rough from going unused for a while. He coughed to try and clear his throat, and only succeeded in inhaling more smoke and ash. Saul’s posture sagged, and his hand fell to the hilt of his sword before he shook his head.

“We’ll talk about that later. Right now, we need to go home.” His eyes met Farah’s, and a quiet understanding passed between them. She nodded, sparing another glance at the village.

She said a prayer to a god she didn’t quite believe in. She begged the spirits of these victims for forgiveness. It was all her fault. It was all their fault, their undying faith, their stupid group of fairies and specialists that believed they could save the world while following a madwoman straight off a cliff.

How could a woman she had loved so much have fallen so far?

Taking another shuddering breath, she looked back at Saul and Ben. They were exhausted and looked as guilt-ridden as she felt. This was not over. It had even barely begun. She met Saul’s eyes, nodding.

“Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> * = this line is taken from one of my favorite poems-- titleless i believe, but people refer to it as "Icarus Laughed." This was NOT WRITTEN BY ME, and I don't take any credit for the amazingness that is this line


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